Talk:Wang Li (linguist)

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Criticism

The Criticism section of the article says:

Wang pointed out in his book Zhong Guo Yu Yan Xue Shi 中国语言学史 (History of Chinese Linguistics) that in the past, Chinese scholars mistakenly regarded philology as linguistics and overly emphasized on exploring the literature instead of the language itself. He decisively claimed that there is a difference between philology and linguistics, while the former relies on the investigation of previous literature and a language's historical development, the latter studies the language itself and generates systematic and scientific linguistics theories. Wang's distinction of philology and linguistics was largely questioned by many scholars; Guozhang Xu, a famous Chinese linguist specializing in English especially disagreed with Wang and claimed that a developed linguistic system did exist in traditional Chinese literature, such as Liu Shu 六书 (Six books), a book on the structure and use of Hanzi, the Chinese character.

This criticism is supposedly based on this article [1]. However, a reading of the reference in question shows that the contributor in question has misunderstood and misrepresented the reference. The reference actually defends Wang Li's stance on previous philological studies. It does note, however, that Guozhang Xu had a point when he claimed that studies of the written language (specifically Chinese characters) were valid linguistic studies and China did, therefore, have a history of systematic study of language. The criticism section fumbles this key point, stating simply that "a developed linguistic system did exist in traditional Chinese literature, such as Liu Shu 六书 (Six books), a book on the structure and use of Hanzi, the Chinese character". The point is not that China did not have a history of systematic study of Chinese characters (which Wang Li would have been aware of), but that it failed to develop the systematic study of language. 122.201.22.100 (talk) 02:22, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]